JavaScript 101 is a pure-beginner, no pre-work class that exposes students to the wide world of coding. By the end of this three hour class, attendees will have written a script that automatically sends birthday well-wishes to their friends — at the appropriate time, of course! You can learn more about JavaScript 101 here.

Most students are interested in Fullstack Academy because they want to transition careers into software development. However, advanced coding schools — like Fullstack — have selective admissions processes that usually involve solving intermediate level coding challenges. Many students who have passed the assessment studied on their own for weeks or months, but others prefer an organized setting to boost their skills.

Bootcamp Prep is a 4-week evening course that teaches more advanced JavaScript programming skills in order to solve coding challenges. If you gain admission to one of Fullstack’s immersive programs, any amount you paid for Bootcamp Prep will automatically roll-over. You can learn more about Bootcamp Prep here.

Fullstack’s Software Engineering Immersive turns intermediate-level, hobbyist programmers into professional web developers in 17 weeks. The curriculum is entirely JavaScript-oriented teaching front and back end technologies. Graduates of Fullstack's full-time immersive program now hold jobs at companies Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Dropbox as well as hundreds of mid-size companies and burgeoning startups. You can read more in-depth information on the Software Engineering Immersive Program here.

Our program keeps expanding

As of 2018, our Fullstack Chicago campus has expanded to its own campus in River North. Formerly housed at tech hub 1871, our program has grown as the bootcamp industry matures and more women apply for our Grace Hopper Track, which offers deferred tuition.

There are two ways to visit!

Information Session

Attend an
information session
lead by our Chicago campus director. Topics covered include
admissions criteria, curriculum overview, hiring outcomes,
and more. A short Q&A will
follow the presentation portion of the event.

FAQ

If you want to build a career in software development, Fullstack offers you the best launchpad. Through a combination of thorough admissions, a carefully crafted curriculum & educational structure, and top-notch instructors, Fullstack's program takes passionate students with a base of programming skill and makes them into professional software engineers. We know what it takes from a professional, personal and mental level to be a top-performer.

We love Ruby on Rails and Python/Django (we built our successful startups using those two stacks). However, the web industry waits for no developer or technology. The future of web development has moved towards sophisticated, responsive and dynamic "single-page" applications running in the browser. Apps like Gmail, Asana, Trello, Facebook and Google Maps have redefined what users expect from "Web Applications" and thus what developers need to be able to deliver. Listening to these industry trends, and after lots of research and conversations with our CTO colleagues at top startups from Y Combinator, we've come to the conclusion that full-stack JavaScript is the future of web development. Consequently, it is what we primarily immerse our students in at Fullstack Academy.

Full-stack JavaScript is the Best Way to Learn Web Development

Not only is full-stack JS where "the puck is moving," it is also the best way to learn how to code in general. Modern web development requires keeping many different parts of the stack in your mind at the same time. As a student, this is challenging enough. Now imagine that on top of this, each part of the stack requires you to understand and write in a completely different programming language (e.g. Ruby, SQL & JavaScript). The context-switch required by switching back and forth between languages significantly slows down the learning process. Full-stack JavaScript eliminates this problem as every part of the stack uses one language: JavaScript.

As evidence for how quickly one can be productive when learning on a single-language stack, two Fullstack Academy teams won the Grand Prize at two different hackathons in New York City in February 2014. Both winning teams were using full-stack JavaScript and were only 4 weeks into their semester at Fullstack. They each won $5,000 and $1,000 in cash prizes while competing with other serious teams made up of experienced developers. In December, Fullstack students swept the awards at the New York Times Hackathon, including the Best In Show and Category specific awards. More recently, students have won awards at NYC's Fintech hackathon and the 2015 Video Hack Day.

What about Ruby on Rails? Why are other schools teaching Rails?

When we first discovered Rails, in 2005, developers were coming from an age where PHP back-end sites were getting increasingly complex and were becoming difficult to manage and scale. Rails excelled in this world, where the goal was still to develop HTML/CSS centric web interfaces with heavy backends. Rails consolidated many of the "best practices" in back-end web development and made it easier for developers to build large sites in an organized way.

A lot has changed since 2005, however. Cutting-edge companies today want to give users highly interactive and responsive experiences that don't require a page refresh at every step. As a result, the web of today is dominated by "Single Page Applications" or SPAs written in JavaScript using frameworks like React or Ember.js. Increasingly, the role of Rails has shifted to serve as an API layer to the back-end of web applications. You can read more about why a a lot of schools teach Rails here.

On top of these reasons, JavaScript offers several educational advantages over other languages. And as the majority of other coding schools teach Ruby on Rails, Fullstack graduates have a more in-demand skill-set that separates them from the competition. Learn more about the educational and job seeking advantages offered by a JavaScript curriculum here: Is the programming language taught at a coding bootcamp important?

Unfortunately we aren't currently able to accept tuition assistance payments from the new GI Bill (though we're working hard on changing this). In the meantime, all veterans should visit our friends at Operation Code, where you can find more information and ways to help support the cause. Veterans also automatically qualify for a $1,000 scholarship at Fullstack.

If you begin your journey with JavaScript Jumpstart, then the tuition you pay for that course will apply towards Bootcamp Prep. And if you take Bootcamp Prep, then all of the tuition you pay for that course will count towards the immersive program.

If you are eligible for rollover tuition, then simply email the receipt for tuition for which you're eligible for a rollover to admissions@fullstackacademy.com, and we'll provide a refund via the same payment method that you originally used.

There's a great amount of resources available online to learn coding these days. They are particularly useful for learning the basics, since the concepts are not quite as complex and the problems/errors encountered are relatively easily to solve on your own. However, self-driven learning becomes more difficult as you get into the intermediate and advanced areas of coding. You can easily get stuck, you don't have strong commitment methods or expert feedback, and you have to develop your own path of instruction (difficult for a beginner to do).

If you've done Codecademy, Code School and/or Team Treehouse, and built some small projects, and you're looking to take your programming career to the next level, attending Fullstack is a proven, fast-track way to achieve your goals.

Once accepted you have the option to join any cohort beginning within 6 months of your acceptance date. Essentially, you have the freedom to apply whenever you feel comfortable approaching coding challenges. However, regarding deadlines, we recommend applying at least 6-8 weeks before the on-campus start-date of your desired cohort. This allows us 2-3 weeks to conduct the application process and accounts for the 4-week mandatory Foundations pre-work.

However, most cohorts begin filling-up about one month before the Foundations pre-work begins. With this in mind, the best time to apply is 2 (or ideally 3) months before your desired cohort's on-campus (or remote) start date.

It's also important to consider your readiness for the admissions process. If starting from a pure beginner level, we've often seen it take students 3-5+ months of study to get to admissions standards. If you're not accepted during your first application attempt, there is a 2 month wait period before be able to apply a 2nd time.